New Jersey Hess Oil Workers Vote to Affiliate with UE

Port Reading, NJ

By an overwhelming margin, members of an independent union of Hess oil refinery workers in Port Reading, New Jersey voted on August 25 to affiliate with UE. The secret ballot vote was 61 to 8 in favor of affiliation. The Hess workers’ union became UE Local 106.

Hess is a prominent independent oil refiner that also sells gasoline through its own retail gas stations along the East Coast, from Maine to Florida. In July, the refinery workers created an independent union and won an NLRB certification election to free themselves from their old do-nothing union in July. Hess union activist Troy Hood, explained the reason for the change: “We were captives in a large local and had no say in bargaining a contract, processing grievances or spending the dues which the old union received from us.”

Hess workers are pleased with the fact that, as UE members, they will run their own local union. That means they will now democratically control their own treasury and make all decisions about processing grievances and bargaining a contract.

The refinery workers are already preparing to negotiate their first UE contract. After electing their bargaining committee, they have begun filling out contract surveys to establish their bargaining priorities. After a recent union meeting where members received a one-page preliminary report on company finances, prepared by the UE Research Department, one worker observed, “That’s more than we got from the old union during the past twenty years.”

UE and company representatives have agreed to begin bargaining in mid-October. Hess workers, Troy Hood, Tom Armbruster, and Bob Volkay led the drive to create an independent union and later to affiliate with UE. They were assisted by UE International Representative Gene Elk and Field Organizers Omar el-Malah and Jim Ermi.